Ultralight Kayak Review - Boreal Designs Storm 17 Tested!

Ken Whiting with PaddleTV with yet another in-depth kayak review. And in this video I am reviewing the Boreal Designs Storm 17 Sea Kayak which they call an all-around sea kayak or touring kayak. Now to test this kayak I'm doing it the right way. I'm taking it on a 5 day sea kayaking adventure on Georgian Bay. But before I do that let me first tell you a bit more about the Storm 17. Boreal Designs Storm 17 Sea Kayak retails for $2,300. It's 17 feet long, 24 inches wide, it weighs 59 pounds or 27 kg. It has a capacity of 348 pounds or 160 kg. Its primary use is for all conditions. The kayak features a rudder, Boreal's Flex4 seat with DryTek, two bulkheads, one behind the seat and one in front of the feet, a day hatch, a bow hatch and a large stern hatch. On the deck there's perimeter lines and lots of bungees and it has self-rescue safety straps right behind the seat. Well needless to say it is a sweet looking boat but the question is how does it perform and who is it for and that's what I'm going to find out on Georgian Bay. So it's day 4 here on my trip on Georgian Bay from Killarney to Britt. I'm just paddling out doing the open water crossing on a beautifully calm morning after a hectic day yesterday to the Bustard Islands and I wanted to take this moment to tell you about, give you my review of the Storm 17. This is my first time using it and it's a great test, you know, doing a real adventure. And here's what I can tell you and let's start with portability. This is, it's called the Storm 17 Ultralight and that's because it's a thermoformed kayak. Thermoforming is a manufacturing process for making plastic kayaks light. Most kayaks, the majority of kayaks are made by rotomolding and those plastic kayaks are significantly heavier. Typically you can expect a thermoformed kayak to be around 15-20% lighter than a rotomolded kayak and that's what this is. This 17 foot sea kayak weighs in at 59 pounds, 27 kilos and that's nice. But, you know, a typical or a rotomolded 17 foot kayak is going to be more like 70 pounds and that makes a real difference, a lot easier to carry it around solo or in tandem. But, you know, it's not as light as an ultralight composite kayak. You can get composite kayaks that are 40 pounds, you know, 40, I think the lightest one I have around, it's a little shorter, maybe 16 feet, is 42 pounds or so, but you pay for it. This boat is $2,300. An ultralight composite boat is going to be twice that, if not three times that much. But let's not get into cost and value yet, I'll talk about that in a bit. Let's move right along to stability. It's a 24 inch sea kayak, which means it was designed to provide a compromise of stability and speed. It's not super narrow to just maximize prioritized speed, but it's not wide and at the cost of a lot of speed. It's a good compromise and that's what, you know, they call this an all conditions kayak. That's what an all conditions kayak should be. Should offer a good balance of stability and performance. That brings us right into performance. How is it speed? It's fine. I mean, this is a nice cruisy boat. I was battling some hard winds yesterday and still making good progress with a fully loaded boat. I mean, this is fully loaded because I'm carrying about 45 extra pounds of camera gear above and beyond what you would need for a six day, seven day kayak camping trip. Maneuverability, well, it's so loaded, to be honest, it's hard to tell, but it isn't the quickest turning boat. I know that for sure. Does that matter? Well, it does if you're playing in the surf, if you really want to make, want to play boat. But my feeling is, if you really want to play boat, don't get an ultralight sea kayak because an ultralight sea kayak, a thermoformed kayak of any nature, does give up durability to be light. And so, you know, this is a kayak that I'm having to take care of a bit more on this trip. You know, when I'm launching and landing in the rocks, along rocks, and when I'm paddling through areas with shoals, I just don't want to hit any rocks hard. And so, is it the most playful kayak? No. Does that bother me? No. It's still, it's plenty all round to handle the rough conditions that I've encountered and the calm conditions. So there you go, performance. Now let's talk comfort. I'm putting big days in this kayak, and so I'm testing the comfort on a different level than I typically test kayaks and sea kayaks. Is it the most comfortable kayak? No. Is it comfortable? Yes. It only has become a little bit uncomfortable after maybe hour three. My butt starts to get sore, even though it's a nice seat for the first few hours. It's a comfortable seating system, for sure. I do notice, hey, this guy can have a little bit more padding for long trips. If you're not doing long trips, it doesn't even matter, but that's something you can add. That's probably the case, and it is often the case with sea kayaks, is long days on the water, sitting on your butt, it is nice to have a little extra padding. Now this thing doesn't have thigh hooks. It doesn't have hip pads. Thigh hooks, tricky to add afterwards. Hip pads, you can make shift. You can add them afterwards to some degree. There's a cost, not so much of comfort, but of performance when you don't have hip pads. I'm just not as in tune with the boat, and without the thigh hooks, too. It doesn't feel like a good trail shoe where I'm really, it's one with me. I'm more sitting in this boat, and so when things got really rough, would it be a problem? Maybe, there's still plenty of, it's comfortable around the knees, and there's lots of boat to grab, so if I flipped, I have no doubt I'd be able to roll in this thing, but I just don't have as much edge control, as much control as a boat that has thigh hooks and hip pads. This boat has a rudder instead of a skeg. That's great. You know, it's toe-controlled rudder, system seems good. I've been, I usually use a skeg, but I've been really enjoying this rudder system. It's got, of course, dual bulkheads, one in the front, one behind. The nice thing about the bulkheads, lots of room in front. I've got a big bag in front of my feet before the bulkhead, which is nice, because it keeps, you know, I keep some of the weight in closest, closer to me. There's also plenty of room, not plenty of room, but there's enough room behind the seat before the bulkhead to have a bag or a couple bags, little bags there, too. Tons of storage space in this thing. For multi-day trips, like I am bringing it, usually I have to store a lot more gear on the boat. The only reason I have gear on the boat right now is camera gear that I want accessible. The perimeter lines, the bungees, lots of those, so you can strap things down, you know, for safety reasons, but also so that you can just strap things down however you like to do it. So that's all really, all great. Not much else to talk about with features. So let's jump right into who this boat is for. This is a boat that's for someone who wants a lighter weight boat and is willing to give up some durability to have a lighter sea kayak. I shouldn't even say sea kayak, touring kayak, because this is a boat that beginner paddlers, novice paddlers, intermediate and expert paddlers can really enjoy, depending on what type of paddling they want to do. This is great for just flat water touring. You can have fun cutting through the water and making great distance, but also taking on trips like this, multi-day adventures, and there's so much storage capacity. I can't stress how much I like having as much storage as this has. Yes, the back deck here is a little higher than some kayaks, and that is going, definitely going to impact how easily you can roll this thing. That is a trade-off you often get when you're adding more storage to a boat. So I would actually, if you do get a boat like this and you roll your kayak, take the time. Go roll the kayak, make sure you can, you're comfortable doing it if that's, you know, if that's even in the cards for you. But I love the storage space in here. Now taking that question of who this kayak's for and kind of meshing it into the next question, which is how, what kind of value does it offer? Typically you have to expect to pay a real premium for the lightweight nature of a thermoformed kayak. Typically it's like, again, just like it's 15 to 20%. You know, you get a 15 to 20% weight savings, but it costs 15 to 20% more and it's a little less durable. So you, you really have to value having a lighter weight kayak, which a lot of people rightly so do value because it can make a big difference, huge difference. With this boat at $2,300, you're not paying a hefty premium. You can get cheaper roto-molded sea kayaks, but you can also spend more on a roto-molded sea kayak than this. So you're not paying a hefty premium at all, if any, premium for the lightweight nature of this thing. So, you know, in terms of who it's for, it's for someone, it's not for someone I usually say who's willing to spend more money to have a lighter weight kayak. No, in this case, it's more, yeah, you're willing to spend good money, if not more money, but you're willing to give up some kayak durability to have a lighter weight kayak. So there you have it. That's my review of the Boreal Designs Storm 17 Ultra Light Kayak. It's been a really nice kayak to have on this trip and I think that that probably says it right there. Is it the right kayak for you? That's a different question altogether. You'll have to answer that one yourself. I hope I've made it easier to answer that question. If I have, give it a thumbs up, this video, subscribe to PaddleTV if you haven't already and stay tuned for lots more paddling tips and gear reviews, but also for this paddling adventure on Georgian Bay. And it has been an adventure, one of the most spectacular places in the world. This is going to be releasing on my other YouTube channel, Ken Whiting Adventures. I'll leave a link in the description box down below to the channel and then to the video once it's up and live. But lots of other adventures on that channel as well, so check that out and thanks for watching. I'll see you again soon.